Daily Score Blog

For me, there are few sensory pleasures greater than the tangy smell of juniper trees (and especially so when I have a fly rod in hand and an eastern Oregon trout stream is chilling my ankles). But apart from their aroma, junipers are mostly ignored because there is little commercial use for them and they mostly inhabit pretty lonely country.

But we can't ignore juniper much longer. A new study in Oregon by the US Forest Service shows that the native tree is expanding dramatically, quadrupling its range over the last 75 years. Researchers attribute the trees' success to a variety of factors, including incrementally warmer and wetter weather (which favors juniper) and range management techniques like fire suppression (range fires once killed off many juniper seedlings). In many ways, the juniper expansion is a classic example of the unintended consequences of altering ecosystems--the effect may be long-delayed and subtle, but it is often profound.

Juniper expansion turns out to be a bad deal for eastern Oregon's native ecology, including the sage grouse, which depend on certain shrubs and grasses that are getting out-competed. And juniper also soaks up a tremendous amount of water--as much as 30 gallons a day for a single tree--a potentially big problem for both ranchers and ecosystems in an arid region.   

The Forest Service researchers don't mention this, but I believe there is something we can all do about the juniper take-over. Because juniper berries are the principle flavoring agent for gin, it's conceivable that by drinking enough booze we could help arrest the spread of the trees. Pour yourself a gin and tonic tonight--easy on the tonic. You're doing it for the Earth.

According to this lengthy New York Times article, the field of happiness economics--which we've followed closely over the last year--is gaining momentum.

Countries ranging from Bhutan (which has declared that its national priority is gross national happiness, not GDP) to Britain (which released a first effort at an "index of well-being" in March) are experimenting with the concept that contentment should be measured as closely as spending. Aside from the Bhutan example, it's hard to tell how influential these efforts have been at a policy level, but the fact they're being undertaken is encouraging. (As the article underscores, though, much work still remains to be done to develop reliable and consistent indicators.)

And research continues to point out the discrepancy between subjective and economic well-being, especially as countries become wealthier. On the chart below, the US and Canada aren't doing too badly on the happiness scale, but neither are countries that have a far smaller GNP per capita.

One of the problems with building cities near waterways is this:  building bridges is just phenomenally expensive.  See, for example, the bridge across the Columbia River, connecting Portland, OR with Vancouver, WA.  It's a rush-hour chokepoint, regularly clogged with drive-alone commuters; and transportation planners in both states are wondering what to do about it.  One option on the table is to build a shiny new bridge in basically the same spot -- at a cost of a little over a billion dollars.  Another option is to spend just under a billion to build an entirely new bridge a mile to the west.

I have no special insight into whether either option makes any sense.  Perhaps so, if drivers are willing to kick in enough tolling revenue to pay for the exhorbitant construction costs.  Then again, increasing car capacity is bound to have all sorts of unexpected land use, fuel consumption, and public safety impacts that tolling, by itself, won't account for -- which could make either project a net loss for the region as a whole.

Either way, the Columbia River bridge is yet another stark reminder of the enormous financial burden that urban transportation infrastructure now carries with it.  When urban highways were first being built, back in the 1950s through 1970s, they were pretty cheap:  the land was relatively inexpensive, labor was cheaper, and lower design standards allowed for less costly construction. But now, as those early structures are nearing the end of their usable lives, we're finding that they're staggeringly expensive to rebuild: replacing a single highway or bridge can absorb a huge chunk of a metro area's total economic output.  Seems like a pretty important lesson to have learned -- but one that the region's road-building agencies have yet to come to grips with.

From today's New York Times:  new results from a long-term health study suggest that 9 out of 10 men, and 7 out of 10 women, will become overweight or obese at some point in their lives.  In fact, even if you've never had a weight problem as an adult, you could still at risk -- half of men who made it well into adulthood maintaining a body mass index in the normal range ultimately became overweight.

But weight, there's more!  According to one expert:

"What's particularly concerning is that these results actually may underestimate the risk of becoming overweight or obese among the general population" because minorities, who are at increased risk for obesity, were not included in the study.  [Emphasis added.]

That's it, I'm joining a gym...